Twisted

TWENTY-THREE

DARKNESS.

Light.

Darkness.

Light.

The darkness offered solace, the light anguish. Therefore, it wasn’t hard to pick which one Mary Ann preferred. Sweet, sweet darkness. But that stupid, stupid light kept forcing its way into her mind.

Like now. Bump, bump. Bump, bump. Her poor, battered body was being jostled, each movement a new lesson in agony. An advanced class of you-think-you-know-what-it’s-like-to-hurt-well-try-this she would have been very happy to fail.

“You should carry her, Vic,” a raspy male voice said above her.

Familiar. Maybe…unwelcome? Or too welcome? Her heartbeat kicked up a notch in the speed department.

“Don’t call me that. And why would I want to carry her?” Wait. That had sounded like her sorta friend and Aden’s girlfriend, Victoria.

“Maxwell took off with my clothes, so I’m tripping on the toga I stole from little bro’s bed,” the male replied. Yes, he was familiar…somehow. She should know him, but couldn’t quite place him. He just wasn’t who she’d hoped he’d be, that much she puzzled out. “If I drop her, Riley will flip his lid.”

Riley. Yes! That was the voice she craved but had yet to hear.

“You complain, yet I’m carrying the big guy.” Hey, that had sounded like Tucker. “He needs to diet. Seriously.”

“Just do your jobs,” Victoria said with a weariness Mary Ann had never before heard from her. Usually, the princess was tireless. “We’re almost outside. Tucker, are you sure no one can see us?”

Tucker grumbled under his breath. Something along the lines of how many times can you ask me this already? “Yes, I’m sure.”

“What about the guards and nurses—”

“They can still see the bodies in their beds. In fact, they’re trying to revive them and failing right now. The kids are dying. So sad. Boo-hoo.”

“Don’t they feel—”

“No. First, my evil deeds increase my power. As you can guess, I’m pretty powerful. Second, the human brain accepts what it sees and fills in the rest. And if it doesn’t, I do. So by the time the people here realize their suspects are dead and missing, it’ll be too late. Now shut up. They can hear us.”

“But—”

“Do you doubt Aden’s skills this much? You do, don’t you? FYI, he probably wants to cut off his ears and mail them somewhere else. Geez-us!”

Now Victoria was the one to grumble. “I thought you couldn’t work with Mary Ann nearby.”

“Things change.”

“Yes,” she said on a sigh, “they do.”

Were they…rescuing her? Surely. But from where? Last thing Mary Ann remembered was kissing Riley, loving it, wanting more, thinking they were finally going to go all the way, wishing their surroundings were different, then a shooting pain through her shoulder, the flow of warm blood, Riley telling her to feed from him—wait, wait, wait, back up that train.

She had fed from Riley.

Was he okay? Was he nearby?

Reckless in her need to find out, she struggled for freedom.

Bands tightened around her. “Mary Ann. Stop, you have to stop.” The familiar yet unfamiliar male again.

“Riley,” she managed to squeeze out of her raw throat.

“He’s safe. He’s with us.”

Good. Okay. Yes. She relaxed, the intensity of her relief forcing the light to go bye-bye, and just like that, the darkness returned.

LIGHT.

Mary Ann heard squealing tires. Then loud, pounding rock music. Then soft, quiet rock and a muttered argument. She was no longer being jostled but resting against something soft. Although, there was a small, hard object pushing into her side.

Her mind immediately went somewhere it shouldn’t.

She pried her heavy eyelids apart. Someone must have smeared Vaseline over them because everything was hazy. Well, the joke was not funny, and she’d be lodging a complaint just as soon as she could pry open her mouth.

“—telling you, I’m good,” Tucker was saying.

“Sorry, but you’ll understand if I still take precautions,” Aden replied.

Aden. Aden was here.

“Letting your girlfriend drive while you hold a knife to my throat is not a precaution. It’s a death wish. Besides, you still need me, you know. Without me, you could be pulled over.”

“And you still need me. Don’t forget.”

Silence followed, allowing her thoughts to align. Rescued. With Riley. Where was Riley? Her heart drummed in her chest, reminding her of something, but she didn’t know what. She raised shaky hands to wipe at her eyes. Though nothing coated her fingers, her line of vision cleared slightly, and she was able to look around. She was in some sort of van, sprawled across the backseat.

Okay, so a seat belt was the thing poking her in the back, not some guy’s… Well, that was a relief.

More relief: she spotted Riley propped up in the seat in front of hers. Even in sleep, he must have heard her moving around because he turned his head in her direction. His eyes were closed, his expression pinched.

Pinched was better than lifeless any day.

She reached up, her shaking getting worse by the second, and wound her fingers around his arm. He gave no reaction, but that was okay. Whatever had happened to them, they were going to survive.

A sigh escaped her, the darkness closing back in around her. This time, she was smiling as she drifted away.

MARY ANN AWOKE to a grumbling stomach.

Frowning, she blinked open her eyes, stretched the soreness from her body as best she could—which equated to not at all—and gingerly sat up. After a moment of dizziness, she was able to make out her new surroundings. The car had been replaced by a small, tidy room, and the backseat with an unfamiliar bed. Whoever had done the decorating really liked the color brown. Brown carpet, brown drapes, brown comforter.

“—have to feed,” Victoria was saying.

“You do, too.”

“Yes, well, I’m okay for now.”

“How is that possible? I haven’t seen you eat.”

“Just because you haven’t seen something doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened, right?”

“So you have? Eaten?”

Feed. Food. Eat. Mary Ann’s stomach threw another growl into the mix, and both Aden and Victoria—who sat in a brown chair across from the bed, Victoria on Aden’s lap—leveled their gazes her way. Talk about embarrassing.

Unlike the other times she and Aden first encountered each other, Mary Ann was not filled with the urge to hug him and run. She just wanted to hug him. He was one of her best friends, she loved him like a brother, but their abilities—his to draw, strengthen, and hers to repulse, weaken—made them complete opposites. They were like two magnets forcibly pressed together, wrong ends up, and they just weren’t meant to coexist. Until now.

She wondered what had changed but was too hungry to unravel the pieces.

“You’re awake,” Aden said, his relief palpable.

“Yeah.” He looked different. A lot different. Gone was his dark hair, and in its place was a short crop of blond. His face was harder, harsher, his shoulders wider. If she wasn’t mistaken, his legs were longer, too.

All that growth, in about two weeks time. Wow. But then, she probably looked different, too. She was tattooed, thinner, maybe even gaunt. “Where’s Riley?”

“Right beside you.” Victoria motioned to the other side of the bed with a tilt of her head.

Barely concealing her jolt of surprise, Mary Ann twisted on the mattress, the springs protesting. Sure enough. Riley was beside her. He was awake, propped up on pillows, and…in pain? His skin was pallid but for the dark circles under his eyes. The normally luminous glow of his green eyes had blunted.

She reached up to trace her fingertips along the edge of those circles, halfway hoping to brush them away, but he jerked his head to the side, preventing contact.

Astonishment? Yes, she experienced that. Then utter, absolute distress. He didn’t even glance in her direction, just kept staring over at Aden and Victoria. He didn’t offer an explanation, just kept his lips pressed together in a hard line.

What was wrong with him?

Had she done something, said something?

Or was he simply hurting too badly to be touched?

He was shirtless, his chest free of injuries, but his lower half was hidden under the covers. Maybe his legs were giving him fits, making the rest of him sensitive to any type of human contact. She wanted so badly to believe that was the answer, but deep down she suspected the worst.

He was done with her.

And if that was the case, well, she’d pushed for that, hadn’t she?

“I thought I heard Tucker earlier,” she croaked out, turning back to Aden and Victoria.

The vampire princess hadn’t budged from his lap. Why would she? It was probably the most comfortable seat in the room. Although…her back was straight, her posture perfect, her hands folded neatly atop her thighs. Anyone else would have thrown in the towel and sprawled. Aden had, though he was running one of his hands up and down Victoria’s spine.

They looked every inch the couple. In sync, together together. They might be having problems, as Riley had told her, but they were clearly working on them.

A pang of longing moved through her. Would she and Riley work things out? Did she want to?

No pondering necessary. Yes, she wanted to. Would she let herself be with him, though, placing him in even more danger than she already had?

Yes, she thought again. She would. After the kiss they’d shared, she would do anything to be with him. If he would have her. She’d run from him, yet he’d chased her. She’d tried to get rid of him, yet he’d stayed with her. And now…now she had no idea what was going through his guy brain.

Well, they would find a way around the draining thing. He’d always been so confident about that, and it was time she believed him.

“Mary Ann? You listening? Tucker’s gone,” Aden said.

“Oh. Where’d he go?”

“We don’t know.” Victoria pursed her lips. “Riley was about to kill him, so his disappearing act was for the best.”

“You should have let me do my job,” Riley snapped at Aden. “Majesty.”

Hearing the harsh rasp of his voice left her shivering. Or maybe shuddering. He hadn’t lost his ability to speak—he just didn’t want to speak to her. Ouch.

“Where’s the other guy?” she asked. “The one at the hospital? The one who carried me?”

Victoria’s brow furrowed, creating worry lines in her forehead. “You remember that?”

“Vaguely.”

“Did you hear—never mind. That was Nathan, Riley’s brother, but he didn’t travel with us. His presence upset Tucker.”

And they hadn’t wanted to upset Tucker? Shocker. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Her stomach released another grumble, soliciting the return of her blush.

“Hungry?” Aden asked.

“I…yes.” Wait. She hadn’t been hungry for food, real food, for several weeks. Only energy. Magic. Power. Now, she would have killed for a hamburger.

Mmm, a hamburger…

All three sets of eyes regarded her strangely.

“That’s…weird,” Victoria finally said.

Her stomach protested the description with yet another growl. “That doesn’t change the facts. I’m starved!”

“Well, then, let’s feed you.” The princess popped to her feet, her expression a little too eager. “I’ll fetch you something.”

“No.” Aden shook his head. “Absolutely not. Tucker’s out there. I don’t want you—”

“I’ll be fine. If not, well, I’ll text you. As you’ve probably noticed, I’m getting good at using modern technology,” she said and bent down to kiss his cheek. “Besides, you can’t go. You have a lot to tell Mary Ann.”

“You could tell her.”

“Impossible. I’ve already forgotten half of what you wanted her to know.”

“No way,” he said. “You and Riley did that joining hands and exchanging of memories thing. You know more than all of us.”

“True. Which means you’ve got some catching up to do, too.”

She didn’t wait for his reply, and shockingly, neither Aden nor Riley tried to stop her as they once would have done. The door shut with a soft snick behind her, sunlight pouring in for a moment, then vanishing like vapor.

“Stubborn,” Aden muttered.

“Typical,” Riley groused.

Chauvinists.

“What do you have to tell me?” Mary Ann asked, dread blending with her hunger and leaving a thick coat of acid on her sternum.

“Brace yourself.” For the next half hour, Aden told her so many gruesome things, she wanted to scrub her ears with sandpaper.

A coven of witches, slaughtered. The D and M ranch, burned to the ground. Vlad the Impaler, possessing humans and forcing them to do despicable things. Tucker’s little brother, potential kidnap and murder victim.

Shannon, stabbed to death. Currently a zombie.

Aden’s voice wobbled a few times, as if he was fighting tears, but he battled them back and continued. When he finished, she kinda wished he hadn’t.

“So much death,” she whispered. Poor, sweet Shannon, who would die all over again if something wasn’t done. Could anything be done, though? She wanted to sob for him, for what he’d lost. She wanted to bring him back as he’d been. Wanted to hug him. Wanted to punish Vlad in the most terrible way.

She wanted Riley to put his arm around her, to comfort her, to tell her everything was going to be okay.

Big shocker, she didn’t get any of that. Even worse, the silence that followed her horrified whisper acted like a thick cloud of oppression. No one knew where to look or how to respond.

Hinges squeaked, and light once again flooded the room. Victoria stepped inside, shut the door and chased that light away. She held a paper bag, the scent of bread, meat and greasy fries wafting from it. Mary Ann’s mouth watered, and she was ashamed of herself. After everything she’d just heard, she should have lost her appetite. For, like, ever.

But when Victoria handed her that oil-spotted bag, she was unable to help herself and dove in, devouring every crumb in record time. After swallowing the last nibble, she realized the hush hadn’t lifted from the room. In fact, everyone was staring at her. Great. She probably had food in her teeth and mustard smeared on her chin.

She wiped at her face with the back of her wrist, her shame intensifying.

“Do you feel sick?” Victoria asked. She’d reclaimed her perch on Aden’s lap. She wasn’t quite as pale as before, and was that a ketchup stain on her robe?

“No?” Mary Ann replied, her amazement making the word more of a question than a statement. Her stomach actually felt grateful. Before, when she’d even thought about eating, she had battled nausea. “What does this mean?”

Pensive, Victoria tugged at her earlobe. “You were shot with a witch’s arrow and lost a lot of blood.”

She nodded.

“And you were given a transfusion at the hospital.”

“Yes. At least, I think so.”

The princess started chewing on her bottom lip again. A nervous habit? “Maybe the new blood, the human blood, has made you human again. At least for a little while. Or maybe it has something to do with Riley? He’s always interfered with your ability to mute. Maybe he’s now interfering with your ability to drain.”

“So, at the moment, I can’t, won’t drain anyone?”

“If you keep the food down, and it seems like you will, magic and energy probably aren’t on your menu selection.”

“You won’t have to run anymore,” Aden said.

“Not if there’s a way to stay this way,” Mary Ann replied, trying not to leap off the bed and dance like a fool. There had to be.

“I don’t know. We could ward you against the draining of energy, but if, say, your hunger for it returns, you would then die.” Victoria studied Riley before returning her attention to Mary Ann. “I mean, we’ve warded drainers before. Not when they were without their ability, because, to my knowledge, that’s never happened before, but always they starved to death.”

If there was a worse way to die, she suddenly couldn’t think of it. Did that stop her from plowing ahead? No. “I don’t care. I want to try. I want a ward.” If there was a chance, well, she’d take it. Anything to return to her dad.

Anything to be with Riley.

She’d rather die than hurt her boys, so, she had no qualms about risking her life. “Do we have the equipment?”

“Yes. Nathan noticed your new wards, and the scabs forming on one of them, and thought Riley might want to correct the damage, so he commandeered what was needed before he took off.”

“We’ll think this through before we do it,” Aden said.

Mary Ann was shaking her head before he finished. “No. We’ll do it. Here, now. Before we leave this place.”

Aden, too, glanced at Riley, his expression more what’s-going-on than help-me-make-her-see-reason. “What happened to our sweet Mary Ann who rarely argues?”

Riley shrugged, offering nothing else, and for some reason, that upset her as much as when he’d pulled away from her. “You told us what you learned this past week. Now it’s our turn to tell you what we learned.”

A pause. A shuddering breath. “All right.” Aden braced himself for impact. “Go.”

Another half hour ticked by as Riley explained Mary Ann’s search for the identity of the souls, her success, her search for Aden’s parents, and what they assumed was her success.

Aden listened, paling, stiffening. His eyes were changing colors so rapidly they were like a spinning kaleidoscope. Blue, gold, green, black. Violet. Such a glittering violet. The souls must be going crazy inside his head.

By the time Riley finished, the oppressive silence had made another appearance.

Aden propped his head on the back of the chair and stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know how to react to this. I need time. Like a year, maybe. Or two.” He rubbed his temples, as if battling a persistent ache. “But you know what I hate most of all? That we’ve been running around reacting to everything, but not causing anything.”

“I don’t understand,” Victoria said.

“Yeah,” Mary Ann said. “What?”

“We’ve been letting Vlad pull our strings. He hides in the shadows, forcing people to hurt us, and we do nothing to stop him. We wait, we take it, we react, bumbling around without any planning, without delivering any retribution. He has no fear of us because we never strike first. Why haven’t we struck first?”

“What do you have in mind?” Riley asked, hard tone laced with the kind of eagerness you might hear from a prisoner on death row who had nothing to lose.

“I’ll talk to Tonya Smart myself. I’ll visit…my parents, if that’s who they are. I’ll find out as much as I can about myself and the souls. Because in the end, I need to be at my best if I’m to have any hope of defeating Vlad. And I can’t be at my best if I’m pulled in a thousand different directions.”

He paused, eyeing everyone to make sure they were listening. When no one offered a reply, he went on, “You two aren’t ready to leave yet, you’re both still pretty weak, and to be honest, so am I. So rest up. When the sun sets, we’re rolling out and cutting some of those strings.”